John Coltrane ââå½ã¢â“ the Art of John Coltrane the Atlantic Years Vinyl Review

John Coltrane's Atlantic period presents an arresting convergence of circumstances. It was a time of raised profile and of considerable transition, the creative person's confidence audibly growing as he united jazz tradition and experimentation; most of all it was an era of major breakthroughs establishing the saxophonist as a leader in his field. The Atlantic Years in Mono doesn't include the entirety of his work for the characterization, but it does ably document a thrilling era that brought Coltrane to a mainstream audition. Don't exist scared by the audiophile bending; Rhino's 6CD/6LP+7-inch set is a splendid acquisition for both newbies and longtime fans. 1 gets to hear the thriving mastery every bit information technology was originally released.

By the fourth dimension John Coltrane hooked up with the Ertegun brothers he'd already chalked up a significant list of achievements, serving as a powerful voice in post-bop'due south development via the bands of Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis, guesting for a track on Sonny Rollins' Tenor Madness, teaming with Hank Mobley, Al Cohn, and Zoot Simms for Tenor Conclave, and leading bands for Prestige and for 1 LP Blue Notation.

Top billing came with Coltrane in 1957, and adjacent was Blue Train for Blue Note, which many consider to be his outset great album. John Coltrane with the Reddish Garland Trio followed in '58 (aka Traneing In for its '61 reissue), and Soultrane retained the services of the Garland ring. Equally Coltrane'south fame grew Prestige would subsequently release nearly a dozen albums under his proper name from unissued sessions and elevated sideman dates, in turn mayhap lending a false impression of the saxophonist as unusually prolific during '57-'58.

Coltrane was constantly playing but was nowhere near popular enough to have that many albums produced in such a brusk bridge; indeed, his two '58 records with Wilber Harden as co-leader, Jazz Way Out and Tanganyika Strut, are rarely discussed in spite of their being positioned direct before Coltrane's move to Atlantic. Well, not quite; the closest correspondent recording to his '59 Atlantic debut Giant Steps is Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.

Captured simply weeks apart, those cornerstone albums combine with Charles Mingus' Mingus Ah Um and Ornette Coleman'southward The Shape of Jazz to Come as ammunition for those positing 1959 as Jazz's Greatest Year. It's a tempting but ultimately spurious argument; one thing The Atlantic Years in Mono argues confronting is Giant Steps' unquestioned supremacy as his finest recording for the label.

Merely don't let'southward get ahead of ourselves; the fittingly named anthology is a remarkable accomplishment, the championship track immediately bursting forth with verve and ideas, Coltrane delivering the opening melody energetically and with a sense of weariness over the formulaic, a condition that's only amplified every bit he rapidly shifts into his solo. What follows demands attention and even so soars with logical progressions that take only helped reinforce the record's canonical status; having pianist Tommy Flanagan on board, carried over with drummer Art Taylor from the Savoy LPs, is likewise a huge cistron toward lasting entreatment.

Pianos are frequently expressive anchors in jazz terms and Coltrane largely utilized the instrument as such; Flanagan is a quintessential inside guy in stiff course throughout "Cousin Mary," particularly as his solo gives way to a spotlight for bassist Paul Chambers. Like Miles, Mingus and fifty-fifty gratuitous jazz sparkplug Coleman, Coltrane was reinvigorating norms and integrating fresh concepts rather than fierce upwardly the rulebook, but he was all the same controversial; "Countdown" begins with Taylor alone followed by a torrent of improvised sax as Flanagan enters at the halfway indicate and Chambers doesn't arrive until nigh the end.

Side by side to its succinct 2:25, the lengthier "Spiral" registers as a more conventional experience enlivened with the saxophonist's "sheets of sound" technique, a hard-edged, denser, more than ambitious approach to soloing that inspired a fair amount of debate at the fourth dimension; his playing on "Syeeda's Vocal Flute" remains as fibrously voluminous as his rumination on "Naima" is tender, and what's shared is sharpness of tone and focus.

Balladry at its most exquisite and non-clichéd, "Naima" substitutes Wynton Kelly for Flanagan and Jimmy Cobb for Taylor, effectively corralling Davis' support quartet for Kind of Blue, and aslope "Giant Steps" and the closing Chambers tribute "Mr. P.C." is one of the disc's nigh celebrated numbers, in part due to the series of blitzkrieg run-throughs it received during Trane'south European tours of '61-'63. Next to those, the original version can audio a chip tame, but that'south simply on the surface; this is the bedrock of those alive blasts, and it's the perfect ending to a flawless, eternally modern LP.

The chronology of Coltrane'southward sessions can sometimes register as calculated to satisfy traditionalists and progressive-minded listeners in roughly equal mensurate, merely the actual release dates tell a unlike story; of the records collected here but two were issued by Atlantic while the saxophonist was nether contract and they lack premeditation in this regard.

Bags & Trane was cut in '59 but didn't striking shelves until '61 and is technically a Milt Jackson anthology, teaming the Modernistic Jazz Quartet vibraphonist with Coltrane, Chambers, pianist Hank Jones and the MJQ's drummer Connie Kay. Combining a bookending pair of Jackson compositions, the championship runway and "The Late Tardily Blues," with three standards, the whole unites the loose, bluesy vigor of the best Prestige dates with Atlantic's organizational acumen; nix specially mindblowing happens but the results cohere into an absolute care for.

Due to its sometimes brittle simply more often overly amiable nature, the vibraphone reliably risks an atmosphere of insubstantiality, but Jackson was a major player on the instrument and the contrast with Coltrane's largeness on tenor certainly helps matters. So does Jones (Elvin and Thad'due south bro), a pianist as sturdy equally Flanagan but with a distinct personality; Kay and Chambers offer height rhythms, with the latter delivering a swell arco bass solo to boot.

Jackson'due south tunes dish the blues while "Three Piffling Words" and particularly Light-headed's "Be-Bop" exude armada modernity; "The Night We Called It a Twenty-four hour period" is the required excursion into downwards-tempo romanticism merely with an unusual and engaging prelude and potent playing throughout. Altogether, Bags & Trane stands as a classic that's stature merely pales in relation to the sessions that surround it.

Maybe it'due south because it overlapped with the grander scaled Africa/Contumely recordings for Impulse or is perceived as a stepping rock to the Classic Quartet, only Olé Coltrane seems a tad bit underrated today, taking an undeserved backseat to Miles' similarly geographically themed Sketches of Spain. Drafting pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, and dual bassists Reggie Workman and Art Davis with Eric Dolphy on flute and alto and Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Coltrane produced a tape that's nonetheless captivating today; in this writer's interpretation information technology ranks amid his very best.

As his tenure with the saxophonist developed Tyner could occasionally connect similar he was gliding in modal autopilot, but his extended solo in the side-long championship rails here is amidst his very best. Furthermore, Coltrane provides edginess and subtlety on the soprano, an axe that like the clarinet defeats many players as they devolve into goose-like bluster.

Highly appreciated is the simultaneous bowing and plucking from Workman and Davis, but the real wildcard is the added tonal colour from Dolphy, whose searching alto is instantly recognizable on "Dahomey Trip the light fantastic toe" and "Aisha" (he too lends flute to "Olé"). Hubbard isn't every bit distinctive but his solos are no less magnificent, easily supporting his inclusion on the shortlist of important (and undersung) jazz instrumentalists having emerged from the post-bop era.

Had the mono masters for Coltrane Jazz, Coltrane's Sound, and My Favorite Things not been lost in a fire, The Atlantic Years in Mono would exist a much heftier set up. Coltrane Plays the Blues was recorded in the autumn of 1960 during the sessions for My Favorite Things but didn't make the retail scene until the summer of '62, and its title is truth in advertising. Tightening to a quartet, Steve Davis is the bassist with Tyner and Elvin rounding out the band as Trane plays tenor on four tracks and soprano for 2.

Although the post-bop approach to the blues is an expansive one, this is yet the most stylistically restrictive album in this collection, though this isn't really a mistake as the contents are broader than most musicians' best days. Plus, these selections form a highly cohesive argument, unsurprisingly more so than does the closeout compilation The Coltrane Legacy.

While the tenor brings necessary weight, the secondary horn adds range and sounds appropriately terrific on the soprano master tribute "Blues to Bechet." Elvin is outstanding from outset ("Blues to Elvin") to the slightly Latin-ish finish ("Mr. Knight"), and Tyner'south playing, which can bring Bud Powell to heed, isn't far behind (he does lay out for 2 tracks).

Recorded in 1960 by not released until six years later, The Avant-Garde finds Coltrane co-billed with trumpeter Don Cherry for a fascinating delve into the titular style and more specifically the music of Ornette Coleman. "Focus on Sanity," "The Approval" (which marked the chronological debut of Trane on soprano), and "The Invisible" are all Coleman compositions, while the spirited opener "Cherryco" belongs to Cherry; a peachy reading of Monk's "Bemsha Swing" closes the anthology.

The drummer for the LP is the inimitable New Orleanian Ed Blackwell, who alongside bassist Charlie Haden on "Cherryco" and "The Approval" greatly deepens the connection to Coleman; Percy Heath of the MJQ slaps the bass for the remainder, and like Coleman'south sublime run of quartet platters for Atlantic, the whole is far more than accessible than the avant-garde tag insinuates.

This has probably led many desirous of a skronk-fest to be disappointed, just if the quest is for inspired interplay The Advanced is a truly rewarding experience; even after prolonged exposure information technology's still hitting how deftly the saxophonist integrates into a markedly unlike milieu from his norm. Intriguing merely never confusing, this tidy LP might not be in either leader's superlative-tier, merely it doesn't miss by much. And "Bemsha Swing" actually is a gas.

The Coltrane Legacy is the least unified of the records hither, but as the tracks it compiles are drawn from the sessions for Olé, Plays the Blues, Bags & Trane, and Coltrane's Sound, the contents are quite pertinent to the thematic thrust of this set. Frankly they go down better on a carve up album (originally released in 1970) than tacked onto the cease of CDs; this is especially so with "Original Untitled Ballad (To Her Ladyship)," a perfectly okay melody that'due south never really worked (for me) as the revised finale to Olé.

It's hundred-to-one that a reproduction of the ii-part 1961 "My Favorite Things" seven-inch will be the deciding factor in many consumers choosing the 6LP The Atlantic Years in Mono over the 6CD, but the 45 is a worthwhile annex highlighting Coltrane's (and jazz music's) commercial potential during this wildly productive catamenia, and like everything else here, it sounds keen. For anyone looking to add some prime Coltrane vinyl to their shelves, this release is an extremely smart investment that volition pay inexhaustible rewards.

Giant Steps
A+

Bags and Trane
A-

Olé
A+

Coltrane Plays the Blues
A-

The Avant-Garde
A

The Coltrane Legacy
B+

"My Favorite Things (Part I)" b/w "My Favorite Things (Part 2)"
A-

GRADED ON A CURVE:
A+

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